Posts in the 'Guest Contributor' category
When we think of design in cities, it’s typically physical environments and infrastructure that come to mind: glass, steel and stone, skylines and main streets, museums, traffic jams, playgrounds and construction sites. But the designs that determine the health and ...
If you visit the Temple of Heaven in the heart of Beijing, you’ll discover a vast network of palaces, pavilions, altars, stages and walking paths scattered over 600 acres of parkland. Recognized as a World Heritage Site for its exceptional ...
Today’s streets are contested spaces. There seems to be an ongoing, intensifying competition between cars, bikes and pedestrians, trying to get from point A to B as quickly as possible. How do they all share the limited space available in ...
This century will be remembered as the urban century. Our generation will witness the most significant urban growth in human history. By 2050, there will be 2.4 billion more people in cities, a rate of urban growth that is the ...
Uber, Lyft, Didi, Ola, Grab, Via, Chariot, Bridj, car2go, Zipcar, Lime, Jump… The list of companies offering new ways to get around – and new business models to access and pay for it – is long and only getting longer. ...
In the 1990s, New York City needed a new water filtration system to serve its nearly 8 million people. But the prospect of spending $6-10 billion on a new water treatment plant, and another $100 million on annual operating costs, ...
Most people now live in cities and cities are growing rapidly. We are living in the midst of the urbanization age, an age that started in earnest at the beginning of the 19th century, when people first decided en masse ...
Our cities are rapidly expanding, and with them motorization is increasing at an unchecked pace. Unless the global community takes meaningful strides to address the impact of these trends on the most vulnerable in our society, we will be met ...
Community participation has become a checklist item for any major urban development project. But what does community participation actually mean? What would it look like if we flipped the responsibility of engagement from citizens to designers? What if, instead of ...
Municipal leaders face hundreds of difficult choices every day. With so many needs and worthy programs, how does one choose where to invest limited funding? In the face of pressing human needs, cities too often decide that funding for environmental ...
Would you spend $8 per year to see your community reduce rates of obesity, heart disease, anxiety and asthma? Still not convinced? What if that investment also reduced energy costs and increased property values? Urban trees can transform city neighborhoods, ...
Can nature help cities address the twin problems of air that is too dirty or too hot? Based on a new report released by The Nature Conservancy – in collaboration with C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group – the answer appears ...
Does urban living threaten our sanity and happiness? Popular culture is rife with stories which suggest that living in a city increases loneliness and unhappiness, and some scientific studies indicate that urbanization increases mental illness and depression. Are these claims credible? How can communities ...
Bogotá, Colombia was recently named the least safe transit system for women, largely due to an epidemic of sexual assault (defined here as any type of unwanted sexual touching). According to a survey, conducted in Colombia and Bolivia as part ...
Milton Bevington is Senior Advisor to the City of Boston under the City Energy Project. He guest-authored this post on the City of Boston’s work on sustainable infrastructure finance. The potential threat which climate change presents to the economy, public ...
